


Sublunary - Love

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1369]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 17:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20624981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony believes love is a lie. Gibbs believes in love at first sight. Can they make a relationship work or are their beliefs just too different?





	Sublunary - Love

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 01/29/2003 for the word [sublunary](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/01/29/sublunary).
> 
> sublunary[ suhb-loo-ner-ee, suhb-loo-nuh-ree ]  
adjective  
situated beneath the moon or between the earth and the moon.  
characteristic of or pertaining to the earth; terrestrial.  
mundane or worldly:  
fleeting, sublunary pleasure.
> 
> This is for Prompt #3 of the April 2019 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/192065.html).

It was well known that Tony only did one night stands. What wasn't well known was why. It had started when he was younger.

He'd watched his mother and father barely speak together. They were both always drunk and the only time they showed any affection was at big parties where no sign of unhappiness was allowed. There was no love despite the fact that his mother always told him she loved his father.

After his mother died, he only grew more and more convinced that love was a lie as he watched his father go through wife after wife. Tony didn't think any of them lasted longer than a year. Each time, though, supposedly they were madly in love. 

He'd tried marriage exactly once with Wendy and she'd left him at the altar. There was no way love was anything other than a lie. Tony had no idea what this thing was with Gibbs, but it couldn't be love because love was a lie.

Gibbs on the other hand believed in love at first sight. His first wife Shannon had absolutely been love at first sight. He’d gotten confused and lost for a while after she died.

He’d spent way more years trying to replace her than he should have and had forgotten about love at first sight. Each and every relationship had ended in disaster, which only convinced Gibbs, that if there wasn’t love at first sight then there wasn’t love at all. No one would suspect how much he loved the romantic tropes based on his personality at work, but a lot of that had developed because he hadn’t had someone to give him gifts on Valentine’s day or any of those other romantic tropes.

When he met Baltimore Detective Anthony DiNozzo, Jr., Gibbs knew he’d found love at first sight again. When he invited DiNozzo to work with him, Gibbs fully intended to woo him. He was hurt when the first time he left a rose on Tony’s desk it was met with suspicion. 

He’d heard all about Wendy, but he was determined to show Tony that he was different. Yet, each act of kindness was met with suspicion. On the other hand, when Gibbs barked orders Tony took to it like a duck to water. 

Gibbs didn’t understand this young man, but he knew he’d already fallen in love with him. He continued to try and woo Tony and was perplexed that his gruff, “My place,” demands were accepted better than the hot chocolate, flowers, or candy he would try to give Tony to cheer him up. When the confusion became too much, Gibbs would retreat to his basement and contemplate the sublunary life as he sanded or did whatever his boat needed at that point in time.

Strangely, this seemed to draw Tony to him more. Without fail if Gibbs was in his basement thinking about something, Tony would show up and either sit on the steps in silence or fill the room with his chatter. Gibbs didn’t mind either one, but neither helped him understand the young man that he’d fallen in love with. 

For when Tony chose to fill the silence he talked about everything, but nothing that revealed anything about him. Those pieces Tony kept close to his chest. Sometimes Gibbs felt like he was trying to peel away layers of an onion to get to the core of who Tony was.

They hadn’t defined their relationship and Gibbs sorely wanted to, but he also knew that it would probably scare Tony away. He hadn’t figured out why, but the idea of love seemed anathema to Tony. For now, he would take what he could get and one day he would hope to understand what had happened to Tony to make him this way and hopefully show him that love does exist and is real.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has 1story already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least 1 more story before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


End file.
